on tour with a Scottish fast food fanatic…

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She was hot!

No – the Rolling Stones did not play their 1983 single ‘She was hot’ at the Murrayfield concert we attended on Saturday….

…but that’s not where I am going with this title anyway. Nor is it anything to do with this Carry On Camping moment from the showers at one of our first stops.

Oo-er missus! Is this the gents?

The girl who was ‘hot’ on our first weekend was – of course – Daisy. More of that later.

First of all I have to mention the troublesome traffic in Perth and my utter contempt for the roadworks planning team who have failed to keep up with my summer itinerary and have placed a mile of cones leading up to and beyond the Broxden roundabout. Not only was this very dull – it stopped me accessing the Broxden Farm Carvery at precisely the right time for my lunch. I had ages to wait for food!

But I was cheered up by the cheesecake!

Sadly I have lost the picture I took of it so here is the online version of it

It is flippin’ enormous. It’s a fiver for a slice, near as dammit, but it feeds the family. Or me.

We also had some soup and a rather excellent Yorkshire pudding rolly-up thing that had roast beef and gravy in it.

That was our lunch. We then set off for Edinburgh probably carrying a bit more weight than usual. Daisy was feeling the heat I guess, sitting bored in traffic for ages, not getting to come in for cake, having to carry us after we ate the cake. She’s a van for heaven’s sake – why do we personify her? It’s not like she has feelings! Or does she?

We then took the bus into the city – leaving Daisy to cool off at daughter number two’s flat in Cramond. There was no real plan here, but we decided at the last minute to go to the castle. We have been Historic Scotland members for many years so the £17.50 entry fee did not worry us!

Smug Bastards!

The shower picture at the top of this blog is actually in the cells of the castle where we visited for the first time. It was an eye opener!

After our short visit to the castle we made our way to the Rolling Stones at Murrayfield.

Now when we bought out tickets for the Rolling Stones we did so thinking we’d better do it soon before they collapse and die of old age. Mick Jagger is 74 after all. We really thought it was probably a final chance before they are forced into retirement.

Well I can see them going for ten years yet!

Mick Jagger looks like a twenty year old – at least from the distance we were away from the stage.

He strutted about the stage for over two hours, ran up and down that runway and bounced about like an adolescent on speed. The support act, Richard Ashcroft (the Verve) finished his set with ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’! I’m afraid they blooming well must if the Stones are anything to go by.

Now it wasn’t all plain sailing for these senior rockers. There was a shower of rain before they came on and everyone on the crew had to run off to the changing rooms to get every towel in the stadium so they could dry off the stage. I’m guessing they were worried about slips and trips. You’d have thought Ronnie Wood’s hip would have forewarned them about the bad weather but there you are.

There were also a few towellings in between songs, crew members running all over the stage. If I hadn’t seen the earlier rain shower I’d have thought Jagger was prone to a bit of incontinence they way they were wiping up after him.

Anyway, the Rolling Stone were immensely good and I see little chance of them stopping taking the roof off venues for some time to come. The last time I came to Murrayfield was to see Madonna bomb with her MDNA tour. She had the arrogance to think she could fill a stadium and play nothing but new songs. Twit! The Rolling Stones gave us all the right stuff – from Honky Tonk Women to Satisfaction – it was a blast.

Top class cuisine at the Rolling Stones.

Our food before the gig was the delights on offer from the mobile vendor village (it was situated between the defibrillator village and the zimmer park). The only good thing about this was the fact that I asked for chips only and they thought I wanted cheese on top. I saved £1.50 on that sprinkling of cheddar!

We took the tram back to town and then bussed it to daughter number two’s flat for the night before our long journey south.

Long journey south?

‘F*^&%*&%&G Camper vans*

According to google Abingdon, is a historic market town and civil parish in the ceremonial county of Oxfordshire. There you can see the beautiful Abingdon Abbey, visit the Town Museum and walk for miles along the lovely Thames Path.

Abington in Scotland is a motorway services village just off the M74.

Guess which one we reached?

So Daisy, a little tetchy after we travelled on posh trams, buses and ambled round castles without her, decided to blow her top about three miles short of the lovely little … er …. slip lane to Abington. The temperature was looking a bit high for quite a while and me ignoring it hoping it would go away turned out to be a poor mechanical diagnostic assessment. Out came the AA (this is a repeat of last year isn’t it?) and a short section of rubber pipe popping off appeared to be the culprit.

However, the AA man (lovely and helpful as he was) decided that he could not effect the repair at the roadside and advised the charming nearby village as a suitable stop-over while we waited for the local garage to open in the morning.

But I have tickets for the Chinese Warriors and I want to see Liverpool and I want cake and things!

Abington is not a suitable stop over for any amount of time. The local hotel? Closed. The local campsite? £20 – no wifi unless you buy a coffee at the local cafe – and it closes at five. Other facilities? Nope.

We decided to effect the repair using sheer bloody mindedness and obtained a length of hose that could be cut to size. I wriggled my frame under the chassis of our beloved Daisy and patched her up perfectly (I think).

We ran her to overheating point to check the seal and … she overheated.

No leaks though – she kept the coolant in this time. The damn fan wouldn’t kick in though.

Our dilemma….

Do we abandon our lovely trip into England-shire and get relayed back home and seek a last minute break (don’t worry – you will still be part of that adventure!).

Or do we chance it?

Late update – after some fuse fiddling and switch bypassing – for some odd reason her fan started to kick in. She appears sealed and cooling normally.

I’m on the edge of my seat. What will happen?

Ah yes! Finally. We decided to return from the quaint little village of Abington to the services where we booked into the Days Inn so we could shower, eat something other than tinned soup and prepare for our next push early in the morning. We have a half one appointment with the Chinese Warriors in Liverpool and – with courage, daring, six bottles of water and a spare hose clip – we intend to make a damn good try to get there.

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One thought on “She was hot!”

Good job you are not just brains Ali, but a part time mechanic/anything at all, you deserve all that food that NO doubt we will see during the Holidays……but just in case another clever clogs picks a fault in your post the village is called Abington, I know because I used to spend my holidays in close by Crawford, if that is the village you meant. FILaw